FEMINISM
CLASS OF ‘09 Remembering some of the women behind the 1909 march
ELSIE INGLIS Now probably best known for the Edinburgh maternity hospital that bore her name until its 1988 closure, Dr
Inglis was one of the first graduates of the Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women, and one of the original founder members of the Scottish Women’s Suffrage Federation. She campaigned actively all over Scotland in the early part of the 20th century. During the First World War, despite Home Office condemnation, Dr Inglis established the Scottish Women’s Hospital Committee, sending 14 all-female medical units out to support soldiers in Serbia, Russia and France. She was taken ill while working in Russia and died in 1917.
CHRYSTAL MACMILLAN
One of the most prominent suffrage campaigners in Scotland, Macmillan worked tirelessly to set up branches all over the country, including Orkney and Shetland, touring the country by caravan and often resorting to guerrilla tactics to arrange meetings in the face of male resistance and violence. One of the first female students to matriculate at Edinburgh University when it opened its doors to women in 1892, in 1906, along with Elsie Inglis, she led a campaign using a university loophole to get female graduates the vote, taking the floor at the House of Lords for three days solidly. Eventually she became a barrister and a Liberal parliamentary candidate.
FLORA DRUMMOND
The chief organiser of the 1909 march, Drummond was an
outspoken militant suffragette who had already been imprisoned several times alongside the Pankhursts. Because of her imperious personality, excellent oratory skills and fondness for military fashion, she was known as ‘The General’. The day after the march, the press made much of her decision to lead the procession, on horseback, with her legs astride the horse rather than the more ‘ladylike’ side saddle. 8–22 Oct 2009 THE LIST 29
Laura Bradshaw and Nic Green in Trilogy
What more do you need?”’ says Green, laughing. ‘God! It doesn’t stop there! That’s just one tiny element that’s related to economics! Feminism is related to everything! I think that’s what’s happened, it’s become really boxed into these little taglines or catchphrases, and reduced down to a singular little issue or politic which doesn’t do any good because the world isn’t like that.’ Green herself does a lot of outreach work in schools in deprived areas, working with teenagers. ‘I ask the girls what they want to be, what their aspirations are, and they say things like “I wanna be a footballer’s wife” – and then we have to have conversations about how that’s not really a vocation, that’s more a circumstance . . .’ Green, and the women involved in Trilogy, will all be taking part in the upcoming march on Saturday. They’ll be dressing up as women they admire – whether that be their mothers or grandmothers, or women who achieved prominence in various fields and have gone under-recognised (Green mentions Annie Londonderry and Lynn Marguilis – go on, look them up). Their banner is going to read Make Your Own Herstory.
The Gude Cause March takes place on Sun 10 Oct. To register go to www.gudecause.org.uk. For more information on Nic Green's Make Your Own Herstory campaign, visit www.makeyourownherstory.org
relevant today.’
‘Well, this is the trouble, isn’t it,’ says Anna Span, the high profile porn director and active member of the Feminists organisation Against Censorship. ‘“Feminism” has become this easy phrase that people associate with one, fairly rigid system of belief: second-wave 70s feminism. It’s a fundamentalist kind of feminism, all black and white. Saying you’re a feminist, and not taking it any further than that is a bit like saying you’re a politician and not explaining what party you belong to. I call myself a feminist because I know enough about the movement to know that it’s OK for me to call myself a feminist and for someone who’s completely opposed to the work I do to call themself a feminist, too. It’s a broad church.’
Perhaps people responded so positively to Trilogy in part because, like the Gude Cause campaign is now aiming to do, it linked the energy of early feminist movements simply and directly to contemporary issues affecting women, most specifically societal and media pressure about body image. It chimed with people thought ‘feminism’ could. they hadn’t
in ways
‘People say, “Well, you’ve got equal pay.